Bully: it's really bad.

[SpankWustler]

On a side note, anyone wanna brainstorm our level 99 Merit choices?

Conspirator Recast - Lowers the recast of Conspirator by 10 seconds.
Despoil Potency - Increases the potency of Despoil effects by 2.
Bully Potency - Increases the intimidation effect of Bully by 2.
Treasure Hunter Increase Rate - Increases the frequency at which Treasure Hunter increases by 1%.
Resist Gravity Potency- You thought it couldn't get any worse, but we made it worse just for you.

[Karbuncle]

Conspirator Recast - Lowers the recast of Conspirator by 10 seconds.
Despoil Potency - Increases the potency of Despoil effects by 2.
Bully Potency - Increases the intimidation effect of Bully by 2.
Treasure Hunter Increase Rate - Increases the frequency at which Treasure Hunter increases by 1%.
Resist Gravity Potency- You thought it couldn't get any worse, but we made it worse just for you.

My original "negative" idea had Despoil Potency.

You know, its sad as we joke, These fake merits are probably the shit we'll get.

[Babekeke]

Conspirator Recast - Lowers the recast of Conspirator by 10 seconds.
Despoil Potency - Increases the potency of Despoil effects by 2.
Bully Potency - Increases the intimidation effect of Bully by 2.
Treasure Hunter Increase Rate - Increases the frequency at which Treasure Hunter increases by 1%.
Resist Gravity Potency- You thought it couldn't get any worse, but we made it worse just for you.

And when the Devs skim through the posts looking for ideas for our merits, they just see these and then the sacrasm is lost in translation...

"And people kept quoting them, so they must have liked them!"

[TybudX]

Holy hell, how did I miss this thread? Yay us! I'm not usually one to get involved with the white knight side of these things, but holy crap does even a small buff to THF feel good. And to think there's people who think 5% DA isn't good enough!

THF merit stuff

Personally, I would be happy if they reworked Hide so that it worked on NM/HNM quality mobs, and then had recast- merits for it at 99. It would give THF another tool to SA in a group setting, possibly combined with TA. Better than that, it would actually allow THF to dump aggro in a group setting, making Collaborator much less useless than it currently is. Something simple but effective. Say, 5 merits to get it down to 2:30. It's more synergistic with how SE seems to want THF to function.

I'm sure there's something obvious I'm missing some obvious function in my sleep deprived state, but considering what Bully just became I don't think doing what I stated above is out of the question.

[noodles355]

for general damage purposes I definitely wouldn't turn for 30secs to get 2 SAs off, but for TH upgrades that is pretty awesome when tankking.

[Xellith]

You should just let us use sneak attack from any angle.

[Laphine]

Some reasons i think this is a kinda lousy dps increase:

-First, SA/TA contribution to our damage is very low inside abyssea. We can use this JA at best at 66% of SAs (1 precharge + 2). This is only on the start of a big fight or after long waits. 33% performance is more of a rule. So, what's already a small boost gets even smaller.

-If we are not inside abyssea, then we are probably not tanking, which means we can use sa/ta anyways (well, truth be told, we can sa/ta inside or outside, tanking or not, so long there are other melees).

-Outside abyssea sa/ta is meaningful. This JA even at 66% performance is very nice, and it's a great epeen tool to start a fight(if the mob lives the first saws round that is). I don't see many situations where we want to kill as fast as possible anymore tho. We want procs and procs and procs, be it TH or !!. A single SARudra can remove 50% HP or more of a VT demon on neo dyna, this can be bad if we still don't have a !! up.

Anyways, a positive boost is positive, and this sure is groundbreaking for us.

[Karbuncle]

One of the better things i can think of with Voidwatch, Is this also opens up the possibility to SATA a tank. SATA > Rudra's every 3 minutes or so...

That, and if its a Debuff on the Enemy... SAM/THF SA > WS with Overwhelm bonus in Voidwatch. Sexy. It has party oriented buffs too.

[Mirage]

One of the better things i can think of with Voidwatch, Is this also opens up the possibility to SATA a tank. SATA > Rudra's every 3 minutes or so...

That, and if its a Debuff on the Enemy... SAM/THF SA > WS with Overwhelm bonus in Voidwatch. Sexy. It has party oriented buffs too.

If it is a debuff on the enemy and works like that, it also means a different thief's bully could let for example a thief that tanks to perform yet another SA WS right in someones face, or for two thieves to SATA a tank two times each per 3 minutes, 4 if well timed. That's a potential 8 SATAs on a tank in 3 minutes, with just two thieves!

Now if hate just didn't cap so easily...

-edit-
Re-reading Camate's description of it though, it looks like it is a self-buff, rather than a mob debuff. I hope it ends up being a mob debuff, that would benefit thieves, and other players, a lot more.

-edit, again-
Actually I hope the name is changed. The effect seems good now, but I never really thought the name was a good choice. I'm not a native english speaker so I'll let someone else come up with a cool sounding and fancy name. Damned be my limited vocabulary.

[FANCY60]

i think its a start worth having anyhow. thanks SE for once